Malcom X was a convicted felon and agitator who was semi-famous for being very angry.

He was born as Malcom Little, but changed his surname to X because “some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed [the name] upon my paternal forebears.”

While he was in prison, Little X joined the antisemitic domestic terrorist organization the Nation of Islam.

Eventually he got in a pissing match with the leader of the NOI Elijah Muhammad. Because Islam is a religion of peace, Muhammad had Little X assassinated.

Source: History Channel and wiki

Next to water, concrete is the most consumed product in the world. Third is Doritos.

OK, that Doritos thing was a lie.

Source: The Science Channel

The Wife^® and I started watching Kings on NBC, which is a modern retelling of the story of King David . We’ve only seen the first episode so far. (The other two are still on the DVR.) It seems promising and pretty interesting, so it will probably be canceled. But either way I hear Macaulay Culkin joins the cast soon.

Anyway, it got me interested in the biblical story of King David, which I will break down to bullet points below.

• David was the youngest of 8 kids. One day a prophet came to him and anointed him King, without the knowledge or consent of the current King (Saul).
• David was a skilled musician, and worked for the King as a musician.
• David killed a giant named Goliath with a sling. This made him a hero.
• The King then hired David as a military commander, and David became friends with the King’s son Jonathon.
• King Saul grew jealous of David and tried to kill him. Then he offered David his daughter as a wife in exchange for the foreskin of 100 Philistines.
• Saul tried to get Jonathon to kill David, but Jonathon hid him instead. David and Saul go back and forth a few more times. David keeps coming back to Saul’s service, but Saul keeps trying to kill him.
• Eventually Saul and Jonathon are killed by Philistines (upset about that whole foreskin thing, no doubt) and David becomes King David.
• David eventually secures all of Israel through a handful of wars and sets up his kingdom with Jerusalem as the capitol.
• Then David saw a beautiful woman from his rooftop, sent for her, and got her pregnant. But there was a small problem. She was married to Uriah the Hittite. And that guy is kind of a jerk.
• As punishment from God and Natan the Prophet, David’s kid with the woman died. But she got pregnant again, this time with Solomon.
• There was quite a bit of familial strife, with some brothers raping sisters, sons having sex with their father’s concubines, and other things like that.
• Eventually David got old and had to retire. His oldest son claimed the throne, but David promised it to Solomon.
• Solomon became King and eventually tried to saw a baby in half.

Sounds like there’s a lot for the new series to draw from.

Source: This Page, and, you know, the Bible.

Each year for the past 19 years a company in Sweden has constructed a hotel made out of ice. They call it (wait for it…) IceHotel.

It opens around December 15, and closes some time in April. When spring comes the hotel melts. Then Winter comes and they build it again.

The completed Hotel has over 100 rooms and suites, a bar (sponsored by Absolut) and a church. And did I mention that everything is made of ice and snow? Even the drink glasses at the bar are made from solid ice. And yes, that includes the beds.

There is also a real hotel next door that has things like running water, electricity*, and heat. (*There are lights in the IceHotel, but you can’t plug in your phone charger or portable heater.)

Each year the hotel is slightly different. I guess that’s one of the benefits of having your structure melt every year.

I have to say, this is what the Saint Paul Winter Carnival Castle should be like. I mean, it was cool to look at, but it really needed some rooms to sleep in.

The official IceHotel website has a ton of pictures and more details about how they build the thing. To pique your interest, here are a few photos of this year’s creation.

One of the rooms (that’s a bed in the middle)

Another Room

The entryway, complete with an ice chandelier.

This is what the hallways look like before they are decorated.

Source: Science Channel

In 1974, an unemployed former tire salesman attempted to hijack an airplane and crash it into the White House to kill Richard Nixon. He was unsuccessful.

He did get on a plane, and managed to shoot a few people (including both pilots and a Police Officer) before he shot himself.

The nutjob recorded several audio tapes at various stages of his not-too-well-thought-out plot (he shot the pilots, but didn’t know how to fly), and mailed them to some people (including a reporter, and the guy who invented the Polio vaccine) before he went to the airport.

Apparently there was a movie about this in 2004, but it starred Sean Penn, so you know I didn’t see it.

Bonus Trivia: A few days before this genius executed his stellar plot, an Army Private stole a helicopter and crash landed it on the White House Lawn (after it was shot down). He was mad because the Army didn’t think he was fit to be a pilot.

Source: The History Channel

Stephen Colbert, notably of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, was the bad guy in an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

He played a guy who was a master forger and had a crazy mom who donated all of his stuff to a charity. I only caught the second half of the episode, so I’m not even sure what the real crime was, but Colbert was pretty good in it.

Bonus Colbert Trivia: He’s written several of the unfailingly unfunny Saturday TV Funhouse segments on SNL.

The Lockheed U-2 is a reconnaissance/spy aircraft flown by the US Military. It was originally greenlighted by President Eisenhower in the early 1950’s, and was flown exclusively by the CIA at first.

The U-2 was able to fly at 70 ,000 feet, out of the reach of Soviet aircraft and missiles. Original versions of the airplane were outfitted with a high resolution camera that was described as able to see six times more detail than the human eye. It was rumored to be able to spot a newspaper from 70,000 feet.

Because it was able to fly so high, the U-2 was able to fly over the Soviet Union unopposed. As more missions were successful, the US got more brazen, and the Soviets got more angry. Eventually the US planned a mission to fly over the entire breadth of the Soviet Union, a flight that would take over 10 hours. During this mission the pilot was shot down by a Soviet Missile, and captured. (Read more here.)

Because of the extreme altitude of U-2 flights, pilots had to breathe pure oxygen for several hours before take off to purge their bodies of any nitrogen (to prevent hypoxia). Also, due to the thinness of the air, the U-2 top speed and stall speed were only a few knots apart. Pilots had to concentrate to keep the aircraft moving, but not so fast that it would stall.

The U-2 is still flown by the US Military today, but is slated for retirement in the next few years.

Source: History Channel

The 1908 Ford Model T averaged about 15 m.p.g. It may have achieved 21 m.p.g. under ideal circumstances.

That does not make it more fuel efficient than a modern SUV, as The Feckless Barack Obama claimed this week.

“The 1908 Model T — think about this — the 1908 Model T earned better gas mileage than the typical SUV in 2008,” Obama told the crowd. “Think about that — a hundred years later and we’re getting less gas mileage, not better, on SUVs.”

Yeah… not so much. According to The Detroit Free Press, when you factor in the vast weight difference and use the government’s own efficiency formula, today’s SUV is about 5-times more efficient than the Model T.

Via Hot Air.

That’s the multiplier for how much more traffic Hot Air gets than this blog on a daily basis.

They average 578,000 unique visits a day. Wow.

I noticed just now that they had a sitemeter logo at the bottom of the page, and morbid curiosity forced me to click it.

A follow-up to The Wife^®’s post yesterday, mostly because I couldn’t resist posting the picture. So, a few things I learned:

• Vince’s real last name is Shlomi, but he goes by Vince Offer professionally. He was born in Israel, according to the notoriously accurate wikipedia.
• Vince is 44 Years Old.
• Vince apparently has enough money to pay a hooker $1000.
• Apparently a hooker costs $1000.
• Without the makeup and lights, Vince looks like this:

If you’re in the mood for some inappropriate Vince double entendre, check out the comments here. And The Smoking Gun has the police report.